Music, Food and Good Brews: #ChicagoMash

A live performance from Surfer Blood, craft brews and our Fall 15 collection.

In case you missed it, our first stop on the 2015 Brooklyn Brewery
Mash Tour in Chicago was last month.

The 2015
Brooklyn Brewery Mash Tour is a week of beer tastings, art,
comedy, screenings, pop-up supper clubs, lively debates and a variety
of craft beer. This traveling festival brings together people, food,
style, culture and entertainment - pencil it in now (be sure to RSVP)
and join us in the following cities: Washington D.C., Philadelphia and Austin.

Last month, the Mash Tour hit Chicago and here’s a taste of what
went down in The Windy City (and check out what to look forward to in
Washington DC, Philadelphia and Austin).

First up: The Seasons & Seasonals event hosted at our store on
Michigan Ave. where there was a beer for every look. We gave a sneak
peek of our Fall 15 collections while serving Brooklyn
Brewery craft beers (honestly, what’s a better pairing than boots
and beers? ).

Lucky for you, the latest Moto Collection and Black Forest
Collection are now available online.

Up next: The Mash Bash at Thalia Hall, where we got to sip on - what
else - the finest craft beers from Brooklyn Brewery and then enjoy a
killer performance by Surfer Blood.

Before the show, we sat down for a quick chat with Surfer Blood to
discuss their latest album 1000 Palms and their band’s history.

You’re all from West Palm Beach, Florida – how did being from there
influence your sound?

Even though it’s not a small town, the music scene there is small.
We knew about each other for years – we all went to the same high
school and were floating around different scenes, but it’s a small
world and it was only a matter of time. We’ve all played in various
bands together, so eventually it all came together as one.

You got together in 2008 and now it’s 2015 - how has your sound
changed in the last 7 years?

We’ve gotten a lot better as a live band, for sure. When we first
started off we were playing these rooms with tiny stages and we all
just wanted to turn up as loud as possible and play as loudly as
possible, but that’s not always the best thing to do.

We’ve learned to listen to each other more and play off each other
and listen to what’s someone’s doing and where they’re going with it.

We had just been on a major label for our second record and we got
the whole experience of recording in a really nice studio in Hollywood
and it was an amazing experience - we wouldn’t trade that for
anything - but that’s never something we needed or asked for. When we
parted ways, we decided we were going to write ten songs and record
them ourselves.

That was pretty much all the planning that was into it. We wanted to
move fast and trust ourselves.

What was it like to create an album without a label?

It felt a lot like a fresh start. Being on a major label opened a
lot of doors and was amazing but in a lot of ways, it was nice to feel
like we’re starting over. It takes the pressure off. We wrote it all
when we didn’t even have a label at that point, so we really were just
writing the record exactly as we wanted without trying to fulfill any expectation.

How does the song-writing process work for you guys?

It’s different from song to song, record to record, but for this one
we got together at our friends’ house in Portland. Their band was on
tour so we moved in and started writing songs there. We locked
ourselves in for a couple weeks with all of the ideas we’d had kicking
around. Then we played a few shows around town, around the Northwest,
and by the time we were done we had rough demos for most of the songs
that ended up on 1000 Palms.

What do you do to get psyched up before a show?

We listen to a lot of Shaggy and do anything physical from climbing
stairs to doing push-ups or we walk around and do vocal warm-ups.

What are your must-have road essentials?

An app that tells you where there’s vegan food. Coffee – we stock up
on it our van. A Kindle. And earplugs to sleep.